Emergency Management
Mitigation is the first phase of emergency management. This step takes into consideration measures taken to conceptualize hazards and come up with ways to which the impact of these risks can be mitigated. Activities in the mitigation phase are future oriented. Preparedness is the second phase and refers to activities geared towards saving the lives of people impacted by a hazard while minimizing the resulting damage. Preparedness requires continuous planning which ensures that emergency managers can effectively cope once a disaster strikes (Lindsay, 2012). Response is the third phase in emergency management and looks into the actions individuals engage in once a disaster strike. This phase calls for quick and safe response to disasters and defines whether the well being of individuals during disasters is realized. Recovery is the fourth phase and involves the steps taken to help the disaster-hit community regain normalcy (Federal Emergency Management Agency, n.d).
The four phases of emergency management are equally important. It would not be prudent to place one phase above the other since they all work and contribute towards the realization of a common goal. Besides, the fact that the different phases often overlap is another reason that shows that no phase is more important than the other. (Lindsay, 2012). It is not strange to see aspects of mitigation during the recovery phase or the vice versa; showing the difficulty of grading the phases. The phases are better viewed as being cyclic, with each phase building on the progress made by the previous phase (Lindsay, 2012).
One best practice during the preparedness phase is the formation of a team of emergency managers. Particular people need to be given specific roles with the common goal of helping a community cope better with the occurrence of a disaster (Federal Emergency Management Agency, n.d). Also, the selected emergency managers need to have the quality of flexibility. Flexibility, in this case, refers to the trait of allowing for the input of different stakeholders whether from the corporate world, the government or even ordinary citizens (Lindsay, 2012).
References
Federal Emergency Management Agency. (n.d). The Four Phases of Emergency Management. The Emergency Management Institute of the United States .
Lindsay, B. R. (2012). Federal Emergency Management: A Brief Introduction . Federation of American Scientists.
